We’ve all seen those posts: a neat little parable, a clever moral, a tidy takeaway about “unlocking your value.” They get likes, they get shares — and then they vanish. But some stories don’t fit into a neat box. They stay with you, because they’re not about price at all. They’re about the kind of value you can’t measure, can’t market, and can’t steal.

“A thousand‑gram bar of iron. In its raw form, it might fetch a hundred dollars. Shape it into horseshoes and its value rises to two‑fifty. Draw it into sewing needles and you’re looking at seventy thousand. Craft it into watch springs and gears, and it’s worth six million. Refine it into precision laser parts for lithography, and it could command fifteen million. “, thus read a LinkedIn post by an  “Influencer” with a really large number of followers. The lesson seems obvious: your worth is not just in what you’re made of, but in what you make of yourself.

And yet, that’s only part of the truth. Value is never absolute. It bends and shifts with context and timing. On a desert island, the Kohinoor diamond would not buy you a sip of water. In that moment, a loaf of bread or a bottle of clean water would be beyond price. Even the humble iron bar might be more precious than a laser part if it could anchor a shelter or crack open coconuts.

The trouble with our modern world is that we’ve let market price masquerade as the only measure of worth. And in the age of social media, this distortion has taken on a new costume: the endless stream of clever, self‑promoting “insights” packaged as wisdom. Posts that sound profound but are designed to sell you the author’s brand. We scroll through them, mistaking polish for depth, applause for truth.

Some time back, in a WhatsApp group, there was a long discussion about the “right” pricing for coaching. I’ve made a decent living from coaching, but never a fortune in USD or INR. What I have earned, though, are relationships that no invoice could capture.

When I lost my day job and coaching was my only bread and butter, I called an old friend and colleague to ask if he might buy a copy of my book. I get INR 49 from each sale. I hung up, reached for my door key — and saw a message that he had transferred a large sum into my account. I called him immediately to say I wasn’t looking for a loan and had no idea when I could repay it. He laughed and said, “There are things money can’t buy. Don’t put a price tag on my friendship with you.”

Another friend once transferred INR 50,000 for a single coaching session. I called to tell him he must have made a mistake — I don’t charge anywhere near that. He simply said he knew, and that was exactly the point. And that was the highest money I got for a Coaching session till date.  ( Btw he was my first coaching client. Still he is. And he is a designated CEO of an IT company. 🙂 )

And then, more recently, there was my 19‑year‑old son, in his first semester at university. He was planning a trip to visit a friend in Jalandhar, and I sent him some extra money without him asking. Soon after, he wrote in our family group to say he could manage the trip within his monthly pocket money and didn’t need more. I was left wondering — at his age, did I have that kind of metta and muditā? That ease with enough, that relationship with money where you can receive with gratitude but also decline with grace.

Some time back, I had gifted a good pair of Birkenstock sandals to my Zen master, Fr. AMA Samy. When I returned from Bangalore, I noticed he wasn’t wearing them. Perhaps sensing my thought, he placed his hand on my shoulder and said that one of our staff at the Zendo didn’t have sandals, so he had given them to him. I half‑protested, saying they were costly, and he laughed it off: “How does it matter? A pair of sandals is a pair of sandals. There is value only when someone uses it.”

Zen master Ryōkan once returned to his hut to find a thief had taken everything. Looking out at the night sky, he wrote: “The thief left it behind: the moon at my window.” There are things that cannot be stolen: joy, peace of mind, the quiet companionship of the stars, the warmth of a shared laugh, the kind of friendship — and family — that gives without keeping score, and sometimes, the wisdom to say, “I have enough.”

Everything of value cannot be measured, and everything we can measure may not be of value. The iron bar, the diamond, the bread, the sandals, the moon — each has its moment. The art is not in chasing the highest price or the most likes, but in seeing clearly what is needed now, and offering it with an open hand.